


Reflection

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Folklore, M/M, Magical Realism, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx had never believed in all the nonsense about gods and traditions when he was growing up. And then he nearly drowned.





	Reflection

When most people Nyx knew talked about magic, it was always the same sort of story. It was always passed down through generations and superstitions and family lines. There were always household gods and bloodline favours— the superstitions that bled through long generations of hunters and fishermen in an island nation full of both. 

The hunters all had their little talismans and tricks, their warnings of “leave the heart” and “spill some of that potion” for whatever gods they prayed to. The fishermen were worse— rhymes about colours of the sky, types of clouds on the horizons, rules about when to leave the docks and when to stick close to home. There were stories about telling the future by which way the guts fell from their prey— beast or fish— and ways to butcher that would please one god and anger another. 

Nyx grew up hearing all these stories and superstitions, and watching his whole family scoff at them. 

Women weren’t meant to be on boats. His father had always taken Selena fishing with them— her quick hands better for fixing the nets and untangling the lines, her clever eyes picking out the telltale signs of rocks lurking below the surface that could break them too close to home. 

Leave out offerings for the imps and fey. Nothing went to waste in his house. Bait was made from the guts of their kills, fertiliser for the gardens his mother tended with careful pride. Skins and scales were re-purposed as they were needed, Selena quick to snatch up the bones to make into beads. And Nyx had grown up knowing how to butcher and fillet, what parts to sell in hard times and what to keep. 

Libertus had a superstitious grandmother, though. 

One of the old ones who liked to look into eyes and declare warnings for the next generation. Who told Nyx to stay away from water because he would die drowning. Who told Libertus to never act without a full day of thought first, in case he brought down a kingdom. Who told Crowe to stay close to her friends, because Nyx’s water would temper her own fire. 

Nyx hadn’t thought about that old woman for years. 

Not until he was watching the heavy blue of clear water— water that had been too still, too peaceful— swallow the sun above him. 

That had been years ago, when he was just young. Just a headstrong teen cutting his way through the forests outside of his hometown. When he had ignored every warning— practical or not— about the dangers of still, clear waters he wasn’t familiar with— in favour of stripping down to cool off after a long day hiking. 

There were stories of the ponds deep in the forests. Stories of ghosts that slipped over the still surfaces (”just a low fog” his father assured him), and of magic pools fed by rains that never seemed to be enough (”rivers,” his mother said as she had him draw water from their well for her garden; “deep beneath the ground”). He had heard stories of daemons that skirted below the surface, ready to pull people down into untold depths, and monsters that ate men whole in the bright daylight when they were blinded by the mirror shimmer of the sun across the surface. 

Nyx had only known a handful of them before he stumbled across his little puddle deep in the familiar wood. 

Years ago, he had slipped on the stones that closed it in. He had slipped beneath the surface and woken on the cold grass instead. 

“I know you’re there,” Nyx had made a pilgrimage out to the same pond for years after. He had gathered stories about it— the trail of bodies it seemed to collect, the way it was known as a “night pond”, the depths of it only clear under moonlight when the sun’s glare was gone. “And I’m not doing the whole thing.”

He had heard stories of the little pond from his parents— the usual warnings kids receive about other kids who drowned there. He had come home, shaken and worried, and fretting over seeing a doctor, and found tales of the little pond he had stumbled across. 

Now, there was a photographer sitting at the far bank, where the haven glimmered in the dusk. He sat with a chocobo and waved a greeting while his camera caught the light. While fish jumped for the insects that skated across the surface. The photographer smiled and waved and kept to his work as the glittering dusk light— the last rays of the day— caught on the scales for brief moments and the reeds swayed in the breeze. 

“Don’t play shy,” Nyx settled himself at the little rocky edge where he had slipped years ago. He set out the fish caught the day before and the drinks hauled through the forest paths. He set the fish— the fatty ocean creatures Selena scolded him for stealing from her as she emptied her nets— at the edge of the water and leaned back. 

“This some sort of tradition?” the photographer asked as he approached, camera in hand and friendly smile still plastered in place. “Like a local thing?”

“Not really.” Nyx had never seen other people this far into the woods. Hunters tended to stay away from the set paths, and the chocobos had to be tethered before they were spooked in the night. He had seen plenty of birds, and the haven always seemed a welcoming sight, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen another person easing themselves down to the soft grass at the edge of the still water. He offered one of the drink, but not before casting a wry look across the still waters. “What brings you out here?”

“Just my camera!” The photographer was younger than him. Less experienced in the forest than him. A bundle of nervous excitement as he took the offer Nyx extended. “I’m Prompto Argentum.”

“Nyx Ulric.”

“You’re from here?”

“Yeah. You aren’t.”

“No, no,” Prompto’s camera was never set down. Focused on the ripples, the reeds, the last light of the day on the water and rocks and fireflies. “I’m from Lucis. Just exploring.”

They sat together until the moon was high and the only movement on the water was the lazy ripple of larger fish that inspired stories of monsters. They sat until Prompto started yawning and offered a spot at the haven, and Nyx sent him off to sleep without taking him up on the hospitality. Until he could lean forward over the still waters and see his reflection in them— and see the eyes that he had been told would condemn him to drowning one day. 

Scrying, Nyx had learnt from Libertus, was the act of reading things across the reflective surface of anything from a mirror to a bowl of water. Libertus insisted that it was always the future he would see when he did it. That his grandmother said you could only ever see the future reflected back at you. Nyx liked to think he saw other things in the water of the little pond that had once stolen his breath. He had seen kings and princes and emperors. He had seen fires engulfing a shining city larger than anything he had ever seen before. He had watched himself burn away in those fires. 

Tonight, he just saw familiar blue eyes. 

“Getting shy?”

“No,” the little sulk to the tone, the little pout in those lips, had Nyx smiling. He glanced to the haven just as the figure emerging from the water did, ensuring that they would have at least a few moments to themselves. “And you didn’t do it right.”

“You know I’m not saying it.”

There was a wry look and the man-shaped-creature slipped back beneath the surface of the dark water. The ripples spread out from the bank, the ink black water silent even as it moved. When the surface stilled, Nyx could only see the stars and moon reflected there— the absolute void of the water hiding the deceptive depths beneath the peaceful surface. Nyx knew the waters well now; he knew how easy it was to slip beneath the surface and nary disturb a thing, he knew that the fish that lurked beneath the surface were there at the whim of the creature now sulking just below the surface, with the stars reflected in his eyes. 

The first time he had emerged from the water, he had been in shock. His lungs burned, the water he had coughed up, thrown up, clung to the grass with his bile. He remembered the way the cool depths had coated his skin, soaked into every pore, even as the summer sun that had driven him to the water had beat down on him. He remembered the days later, when his family commented that he was cold to the touch, that he had felt like he had just emerged from a swim. He remembered that the ocean waters burned when he touched them, pulling in nets with Selena, and the sand was too rough beneath him as he lounged on the beach with Libertus and Crowe, beads and twine between them as they worked together to craft the dreamcatchers Crowe would sell to the tourists flocking to the sands and surf. 

And he remembered those blue eyes— reflecting a whole world back at him— when he returned to he water that had nearly killed him. 

He remembered the stories he had learnt of the forest— the little lost children, who vanished beneath the claws of daemons the hunters had eradicated. The stories of the boy from centuries, millennium, eons, ago who drowned in the waters of a still pool and was kept trapped there by the prayers of well-meaning family. The stories of cold prisons holding back gods, and the friendship between the gods of dreams and death and the stars. 

He remembered that the creature called itself Noctis. 

In the wet grass, he shifted until his feet were in the water, boots discarded on the banks, in the light of his little lantern and the fireflies. He watched the bright confetti flashes of the bugs dance across the dark waters, and saw his creature watching him with a victorious little smirk. The brat. 

Nyx offered a smirk back and took a deep breath. He stilled himself, like the waters. He heard the winds in the trees around him, and the humming pulse of haven magic across the water. He heard the curious noises of the chocobo still tethered, fed and sleeping. He felt the cool air around him, and his back stiffening in the dark, the creeping, seeping chill of the water slipping up his legs as he offered himself up to it again. 

“Noctis,” he learnt the words from one of Libertus’ old books on summoning and spells. Circles and openings and closings and prayers he had never had a mind for; “prince of this unnamed pond, I bring an offering in thanks for sparing my life.”

“And?”

The voice was next to him, breathed softly into his ear as he closed his eyes— because that’s what Libertus always said to do. He heard it from between his legs, Noctis’ hands moving upward with the creeping cold, threatening to pull him in.

“And,” Nyx couldn’t bite back the smile; “I bring myself as offering for your priest. If you’ll have me.”

“And?”

“And you’re such a little brat, Noctis.”

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say!”

But there was a laugh in the scolding, teasing even as Nyx reached out for the creature. He supposed it was a god, really. A creature born of the water and darkness and moonlight reflected across the still waters. Something Nyx had seen worshipped for years with little offering in a hundred different ways around his island. 

Nyx had never been a believer. 

He had never been a supplicant to the folklore that was ingrained in the land and people. He had never sat with Libertus during these traditions and offerings, content to see the lanterns and flowers and ceremonies from a distance. The gods as untouchable as dreams. 

But Noctis was here and real and in his hands as he laughed and tried to squirm away to take the fish Nyx had brought. “I don’t know if I want you anymore.”

“That’s fine. I’ll still come by.”

“I’ll stop showing myself.”

“I’ll keep bringing you snacks.”

“I’ll go back to sleep.”

The water closed around him as Nyx let himself slide into the pond. He felt the cold hands of the creature moved to steady him, felt the banks drop away from beneath his feet, treading among the stars until even the glow of the haven was consumed. Until it was just him and Noctis, face to face within the mirror of the water, the stars rippling around them and the moon suspended above and below. 

“I’ll still love you.”

When Nyx had woken on the cold grasses in the summer sun, he had seen those eyes watching him from the water. He had seen the dark waters dripping from dark hair, and heard the soft voice tumbling in haste from worried lips: “you’re mine, and you won’t die.”

“I’ll still love you.”

Noctis had never seen his reflection before— in the waters so clearly. He had been a child once, lost in the forest and hiding from the beasts and daemons and creatures that had scared him. He had taken a drink from a pond once, and slipped beneath the surfaces by accident. But he had been a child, and scrying had always come naturally. In his reflection, before the waters called him home, he had seen Nyx in the stars, and smiled as he reached to cup the face of the man that would draw him in. 

“You’re mine,” the creature in the waters had whispered, its features framed by the Galahdian beads that had been so strange to Noctis then. “And I love you.”

“You’re mine,” Noctis whispered against Nyx’s lips, “And I love you.”


End file.
